


UNRAVELING-

by Aazhie



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Mythology - Freeform, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 10:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20505557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aazhie/pseuds/Aazhie
Summary: Crowley, sometime (probably immediately) after his Fall. Not sure if pain and suffering needs a violence warning, but better safe than upsetting anyone.





	UNRAVELING-

**Author's Note:**

> I assume time does not pass the same before humans were invented. I do not assume that the Bible is a perfect or definitive source of chronological events, or an accurate depiction of what happened between Lucifer's rebellion and the creation of Adam and Eve.
> 
> Working over a very loose headcanon of Crowley's Fall. My version is that he doesn't actually remember anything specific of his angel self and life before falling, only vague impressions of what Heaven was like. I'm intentionally keeping things really vague here, I tend to enjoy David Lynch-ian ambiguity, so if you interpret things differently than I intended, that is not actually wrong. 
> 
> For me, metaphysical concepts are vague and able to be interpreted in many, many ways. The most special aspect of GO to me is that right and wrong are not easily defined, the meaning of the universe and reasons for why things happened are never really fleshed out. God's intentions and presence are rarely, if ever, obvious. It's not even clear if anyone has ever directly spoken to God itself.
> 
> I'm all too happy to discuss more...

A black forked tongue flickered inches from his face. His attention was captured momentarily before he was dragged deeply into suffering. 

The brightness seared. All he could feel was pain, in so many different forms. It seemed as though he had never known the sensation before. Now, it was staggering. It was immense. It was being crushed beneath shifting mountains that ground him away.  
Gritty sand prickled all over his skin in shifting waves of intensity, but the radiant heat under all grains pulsed steadily. His mind wandered through obstacles of agony, finding nothing else to center his being. He was no one, without a memory. The silent companion remained, his unmoving witness.

Time strained along, immeasurable. Each time a pain became familiar or bearable, the sensation slid into a new and indescribable tribulation. Moving was something of a change when he tried, thought it was often too much more pain than he could bear. It was a relief in some sense, for it brought on such extremes that he lost consciousness. The world was a shifting assault in every moment of awareness. Eventually, he began to struggle in vain attempts to cease his suffering, however brief and fleeing the respite might be. 

After eternity, blinded by torment, he knew despair. Had he a voice, he might have cried out. He could not describe thirst, but he felt it without comprehension. A new aspect of discomfort stabbed at him as his body healed. He felt great distortions throughout his being in detail, knowing somehow- nothing would heal well. All he could do was endure.

As the light shifted, blinding him, he heard a voice. It was deeply familiar. Frighteningly so, but he could not place the vague memory. He felt as though he was dreaming, though, like thirst, dreams were a foreign concept.

_I die_  
_Thou might live_  
_Take of my skin_  
_Speak from my tongue_  
_See from my eyes_  
_Lift yourself from the earth_  
_Drink of my sorrows_  
_Write my story in thy flesh_

He realized that he had been afraid. Fear released him, unraveling pain anew down his limbs, relief in spite of anguish. The kiss of the deadly beast was soothing, with only the faintest of sting.

When he awoke, he was cool and his pain had receded. The scorching sands were unchanged, but they no longer tormented him. His tongue forked the air sharply, bringing new awareness. His losses seemed more distant. Their sharpness was unaltered, but his scales protected even his intangible pains. As soon as he realized that this was merely a shard of what he must do, the revelation faded from memory. Like the pain, it was too blazingly potent, too immense to endure for long. It burned a very deep space in him that was never meant to be filled. This loss would haunt him most above all the others. It would compel him to seek answers his hand had writ, and more beyond. Nosing his blunt snout into the sand, the ground opened beneath his scales. Though he desired little more than to rest, his work had only begun.

He descended.  



End file.
